He enjoyed building a big fire when in Africa and he'd sit with his choice whiskey and when the hyena showed their glaring eyes....he'd shoot them in the gut and get a big laugh out of hearing the pack eat the wounded beast!
Chapter and verse?
"With ducks thick in neighboring creeks and canals, and out on Tom Gooding's ranch pheasants fat with grain, Hemingway could not have been happier. Hunting frequently with Gary Cooper, who was more a Montana cowboy than a Hollywood movie star, Ernest posed for countless pictures, holding the day's bag. Cooper, he found, was a better rifle shot; Ernest was best wing-shooting with his over-and-under shotgun. Both men had come of age in an America so abundant with game that bag limits seemed onerous, and predators were to be eliminated. On his 1933-34 African safari, Hemingway had amused himself shooting hyenas; Cooper did the same with hawks on telephone poles and coyotes in the field. The two were both artists and outdoorsmen, fitting comfortably together in the field and at supper. Hemingway complained that Martha was so impressed with Cooper that she wanted Ernest to dress better, but nothing, he said, was going to make his face any better. Both men knew and admired each other's work: Cooper had portrayed Frederic Henry in the 1932 film version of A Farewell to Arms. Already there was talk between them that Cooper might become Robert Jordan for the movie version of For Whom the Bell Tolls."
NOTE:
Another info source I can't recall went into the 'firelight shooting' but it's been 50 years since I read that info and I can't recall the source!
